There’s more than one way to rezone for a sewage treatment plant at McLoughlin Point.
There’s the Capital Regional District proposal, and then there’s Esquimalt’s proposed bylaw amendment, which would rezone the site to allow the sewage plant along with research space, high tech uses, offices, a hotel, retail space, entertainment and theatre and boat moorage.
Esquimalt councillors expect to hear from citizens on Monday before considering zoning changes that would allow construction to begin.
The in-house bylaw amendment for the site is saying “think outside the box,” Mayor Barb Desjardins said Tuesday.
“You don’t have to just build a sewage treatment plant. … [Consider] what else can you do with this wonderful piece of property,” Desjardins said.
“We want to be leaders. CRD is always talking about being a leader and so let’s do something that is really innovative in terms of shifting the thought away from sewage treatment to resource recovery.”
Esquimalt’s in-house bylaw amendment aims to capture the “best practices from other jurisdictions around the world, and is more reflective of the costs such a facility would impose on the community,” according to the proposal.
Both plans include community amenities, but the Esquimalt proposal would require more money to realize, Desjardins said, which is only in keeping with the value of the site to the community.
The municipality started work on its own bylaw when the CRD identified July 5 as the date it would send out its request for proposals for the McLoughlin Point plant, said Bill Brown, Esquimalt’s director of development services.
Amenities zoning such as proposed is common, but Brown said he is unaware of any involving a sewage treatment plant.
This bylaw amendment offers the CRD “greater flexibility to be innovative and creative in building their sewage treatment plant,” Brown said.
The CRD owns McLoughlin Point, which is zoned for bulk petroleum storage.
Amenities in the CRD proposal include:
• $950,000 for bike and pedestrian path upgrades on Lyall Street
• upgraded water and firefighting protection
• provision of underground conduit for future below-ground utilities
• road repair from construction activities
• an on-site interpretive and education centre
• public access and a public walkway system, if permitted by the Department of National Defence, which owns the surrounding land.
The Esquimalt bylaw proposes mandatory barging of materials to McLoughlin Point and building a pier to accommodate the barge. Moreover, the existing CRD Macaulay Point Pump Station should be upgraded to equal or better the recently approved Craigflower Pump Station.
“In addition, the amending bylaw includes more reasonable setbacks, landscaping, parking and other regulations in keeping with Township Advisory Planning Commission recommendations and historical zoning,” the proposal says.
First, council has to find out whether the public “has an appetite” for something very different at McLoughlin Point along with sewage treatment, Desjardins said.
After Monday’s public hearing regarding rezoning, Esquimalt council is expected to vote July 15 on the proposed bylaws.
Meanwhile, CRD directors may vote as early as today on the site for the biosolids plant, another major part of the $783-million sewage treatment proposal. It has identified Viewfield Road in Esquimalt and Hartland landfill in Saanich as prospective sites for the plant.
CRD staff recently recommended against Viewfield in the wake of two weeks of public hearings, but CRD directors are not bound by that recommendation. Politicians can ignore the advice or pick an alternative action, including another meeting to allow community delegations to present directly to the CRD.
